An artist who allowed onlookers to interact with her in any way they pleased for a six-hour duration has shared the most distressing aspect she faced during the event.
While most individuals tend to keep strangers at a distance, Marina Abramović disregarded this natural urge for the sake of an artistic performance she staged in 1974.
Originally from Serbia, the artist traveled to Naples, where she launched her performance by laying out 72 objects on a table.
She invited the public to use the objects on her in any manner they wished over a span of six hours, in a performance she titled ‘Rhythm 0’.
The Marina Abramović Institute reports that she addressed the crowd with: “I am an object. You can do whatever you want with me and I will take full responsibility for the 6 hours.”
The items available for use ranged from flowers and apples to knives, and even a loaded gun.
At first, the audience was hesitant, but the dynamic shifted when one participant raised Marina’s arm.
Subsequently, others joined in, tearing her clothes and allegedly using a knife to cut her skin.
Throughout the six-hour period, Marina endured increasingly distressing acts, eventually confessing that she felt ‘ready to die’ as time progressed.
“I still have the scars of the cuts,” she shared in a 2010 interview with The Guardian, where she recounted her experience, including being blindfolded and doused with cold water.
Marina also detailed the ‘worst’ moment of the performance.
She remembered: “A man pressed the gun hard against my temple. I could feel his intent. And I heard the women telling the men what to do.”
“The worst was the one man who was there always, just breathing. This, for me, was the most frightening thing,” she recounted.
The experience left Marina with ‘one streak of white hair’ and a lingering ‘feeling of fear’.
“Because of this performance, I know where to draw the line so as not to put myself at such risk,” she remarked.
“It was a little crazy,” the artist added. “I realized then that the public can kill you. If you give them total freedom, they will become frenzied enough to kill you.”